Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/70

 Ixii INTRODUCTION.

clothes, to the valeiu of 50 or 60 lb at leaft ; The Lord gaue, and the Lord hath taken, bleffed bee the Name of the Lord. Tho : my own loffe of books (and papers efpec.) was great and my fathers far more being about 800, yet y^ Lord was pleafed gratioufly many wayes to make up y*" fame to us. It is there- fore good to trufl in the Lord."

There could have been little of variety to call Mrs. Brad- street aside from the daily routine of her quiet country life. Attendance on the frequent and long-protracted religious meetings, and the duties of her household, must have occu- pied her time when she was well. She had evidently exposed herself to the criticism of her neighbors by study- ing and writing so much. The fact of a woman's being able to compose any thing possessing any literary merit was regarded with the greatest surprise by her contempo- raries, and was particularly dwelt upon by her admirers.* In the " Prologue " she says : —

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who fays my hand a needle better fits, A Poets pen all fcorn I fhould thus wrong, For fuch defpite they caft on Female wits : If what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'l fay it's ftoln, or elfe it was by chance." f

sketch of Miss Hannah More (probably written by Mrs. Hall) which shows that public opinion changed quite slowly on tliis point.
 * See pages S3-92. There is a paragraph in Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's

"In this age, when female talent is so rife, — when, indeed, it is not too much to say women have fully sustained their right to equality with men in reference to all the productions of the mind, — it is difficult to comprehend the popularity, almost amounting to adoration, with which a woman writer was regarded little more than half a century ago. Aledi- ocrity was magnified into genius, and to have printed a book, or to have written even a tolerable poem, was a passport into the very highest society." " Art Journal." London: 1S66. p. 1S7. t Seepage loi.

�� �